Azdin sat hunched over a wooden desk, surrounded by a growing mountain of books, their pages spread open and overlapping one another. His eyes travelled steadily across the lines of text, occasionally pausing to reread a particularly interesting passage or turn to another page. He enjoyed reading, genuinely so, but even he had his limits.
Hours of sifting through pages had begun to wear on him. His initial curiosity had gradually given way to a dull sense of monotony, and he found himself rereading the same sentences more often than he'd like to admit. Beyond the great skylight, the afternoon sunlight had long since begun to fade, casting stretched shadows across the wooden floor as an orange light escaped in.
Azdin looked up towards it, finally realising just how much time had passed. He'd been at it for so long that the day was nearly over, and despite his love for books, he was beginning to wonder whether a break might be in order.
'Yeah, I think this is enough.'
Compared to this morning, this version of him right now already knew so much more. If he really wanted to, then he wouldn't need to come back for a while, he'd learnt everything he wanted.
'Becoming Ascendant is going to take more time than I thought.'
The path of ascension was the road to godhood, and ranks dictated how far one had walked down that path. If awakening was about opening oneself to the supernatural and gradually stepping outside of the nature of mortals, then Ascendence was to rise above it. After that, transcendence was to immerse in that world further via a source element, transcending their mortal nature to become a part of something greater than themselves, which could only be attained with an aspect.
To become supreme, one needed to establish a domain. To his disappointment, its meaning was rather obscure, and anything more than that didn't exist. Knowledge of advancing to anything higher wasn't present anywhere he looked too.
'Supremes exist, so the method must exist.'
And yet the knowledge of it was seemingly absent. Why was that? There were a handful of Supremes active in the twilight sea, as well as many prominent figures that had ruled it in the past, so it had to be written down somewhere.
'I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, I need to actually become a transcendent first before I can even try.'
Right now, his focus was on the next step, Ascendence.
Becoming Ascendant seemed easy enough at a glance, but for him it was tougher than it perhaps should've been. In order to do it, he needed an immense amount of soul essence and a soul essence refining technique to improve its quality to the level of an Ascendent. With enough time and some conscious refinement of his soul core, his rank would go up on its own.
His first issue was actually obtaining the required soul essence. The only way to get more outside of his own was to harvest soul fragments, which could only be done by..
'Killing.'
As for how much he needed… although it wasn't a must, the full saturation of his soul core was probably a good measure. When the body increased in rank, essence was used to fuel the processes, so having more of it would make him stronger.
Lucky for him, a solution was right around the corner.
'The disaster tide.'
The storm god was most notably the goddess of travel but also the goddess of disaster. Her realm wasn't just a navigation nightmare, but it was the home of different kinds of environments, all with unique weather patterns and strange phenomena of their own.
The total number of unexplored regions was beyond measure, but the number of its largest ones that humans populated…
'The seven seas of the twilight sea.'
The sea Azdin had spent all this time on was called the merciful sea. Exactly as its name described, it was the most peaceful of the bunch, with it not really excelling in anything, but neither did it lack in anything.
If it had one problem, it would be the region it boarded happened to be the complete opposite of that.
The Wrathful sea. An ocean of turbulent seas that was damn near unnavigatable. Its weather was the complete opposite of the sea of mercy, with it being constantly shrouded by a torrent of storm clouds that rained lightning and rain down upon it ceaselessly. If the weather and waters didn't tear apart any ship that tried to brave it, then the creatures hiding beneath the waves would instead. Every single thing capable of surviving in that kind of hellish place was exceptionally deadly and stupidly tough to kill.
In the place where they boarded, they usually didn't mix, but once in a long while, they would. With a tiny portion of the outskirts of each managing to spill into the other's side, dragging along with it whatever characteristics they carried.
This was the cause of the disaster tide. A natural disaster where hundreds upon thousands of nightmare creatures would swarm across the sea like a tide. Coming from the north, they would rampage, attempting to end all life that got in its way. While being an omen to many.. to a surprisingly great number, it was actually a blessing.
For others it was an opportunity for fame, glory and money.
For Azdin, it was his ticket to Ascendence.
All he had to do was kill and survive.
'I'm already making the commitment, so who cares?'
All the creatures that lived in that sea were rabid, and even in the golden age there would be a great deal of nightmare creatures mixed in with them. So he felt no qualms in killing them, it would be for the greater good.
Even if he didn't want to participate, there weren't any other creatures around to hunt because of the tide too. The twilight sea's sea creatures had adapted to be able to avoid it months in advance, which was why their presence had become seemingly absent in the time Azdin was active.
'I think I remember Roswell saying something about it before.. that island me and Hugo were on was right next to it too, wasn't it?'
Just then he got shivers. If the two had stayed their any longer, then they probably would've died once it began. With all the ships steering clear of that area, Roswells might've been the first as well as the last they would've seen.
'I don't wanna think about it anymore..'
The idea looked terribly dangerous at a glance, but it wasn't like he would be fighting that entire number. A great deal of awakened were actually gathering here in anticipation for it. With Nantames being in its path, it was a great meeting spot for all who wanted to challenge it seeking glory.
'That's probably why those war empire ships are gathering here too.'
This wasn't the first time Nantames had braved it either, regardless of what happened to him it would be fine.
Moving on, his second issue in becoming Ascendant was learning a soul essence refining technique. To his disappointment there was no such thing in the books he read.
'More missing knowledge? Is someone doing this on purpose?'
He was hard-stuck on finding a solution for a while, but thinking back on what he did with the librarian earlier, the answer quickly came to him.
'There should be plenty of Ascendants around here, I can always just ask one of them!'
Obviously they would know one since they already were one. It was simply a matter of finding a generous person who was willing to mentor him for however long it would take. If he found a knowledgeable enough transcendent too, he might end up learning a bit about becoming supreme as well.
That concluded how he'd go about getting stronger.